...on United States Welfare: Federally funded and governed US welfare began in the 1930's during the Great Depression. The US government responded to the overwhelming number of families and individuals in need of aid by creating a welfare program that would give assistance to those who had little or no income. The US welfare system stayed in the hands of the federal government for the next sixty-one years. Welfare system reform became a hot topic in the1990's. Bill Clinton was elected as President with the intention of reforming the federally run US Welfare program. In 1996 the Republican Congress passed a reform law signed by President Clinton that gave the control of the welfare system back to the states. The United States provides many different Welfare programs to help meet the needs of citizens with lower incomes and also programs that are intended to help citizens progress out of their current living situations. Some programs are common knowledge, but there are also other programs that most people don’t are under the Social Welfare umbrella. Why is Social Welfare a Social Problem? Social Welfare is a social problem because they are government programs citizens are forced to pay into whether they support it or not, limiting their choice of how they want their money to be used. Social Welfare is also a program that supports thousands of individuals and families who may not be able to support themselves. There is great debate on whether social welfare programs should be...
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...English 1103 November 3, 2011 Analyzing Arguments: Is Vegan/Vegetarianism Diets Healthy? Eating is a necessary task humans undertake every day to survive and thrive. Food has become a huge part of society’s everyday culture and an essential aspect in our economy. As humans, we are capable of choosing the types of food we put in our bodies and these choices define in part what we look like and what we stand for. People choose whether they would like to be carnivores, vegetarians, vegans, or a combination. Author Ben Kim, a chiropractor and acupuncturist in Barrie, Ontario, Canada, states his thoughts on these choices in his article “A Strict Vegetarian Diet Is Unhealthy for Most People.” His article was written in 2010 to discourage people from adopting 100% vegan diets because in his opinion these diets are dangerous to the long term health of humans. Kim addresses his article to people who have adopted or are thinking of adopting 100% vegan lifestyles. He is trying to convince these groups that it is unhealthy long-term to limit yourself to a 100% plant-based diet. The main ideas Kim states in order to dissuade his audience from adopting vegan diets are that 100% vegan diets lead long term to the development of nutritional deficiencies and significant health problems, that the morality of vegan lifestyles are questionable, and that the organizations that promote vegan lifestyles have ulterior motives. While Kim makes a weak argument against 100% vegan diets, his assertion...
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...Introduction In the united Sates there is a constant dialogue about the health insurance industry, health care, access to care, the escalating cost of care; the impact of health insurance on work productivity, or the question of health insurance being a right or a privilege. There are approximately thirty-two countries that have an established universal health care system, and the citizens of these countries have access to care. Why is it so hard for the United States of America to create and accomplish this same feat? Is it because of pluralistic views of those in power in America? Is it because of capitalism? Fleming (2006) states, “ compared to health care systems in other nations, the U.S. system depends more on the free market and is more fragmented in pluralism with multiple players, and with large but not Universal public power” (para. 2). Is the United States’ unwillingness to craft a system based on models contrived in the thirty-two countries a testament to more conservative libertarian views, by holding on to the belief that Government should have limited power over the people? Either way it is a defeatist view for America and the disadvantaged groups in this country....
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...animals for food becomes questionable.” Barbara Kingsolver, in her essay “You Can’t Run away on Harvest Day”, defends against the argument about not eating meat because it’s harming a life. Indicating an estimate, “67 million birds die each year from pesticide exposure”, she points out: “To believe we can live without taking life is delusional.” Gary Steiner, in his essay “Animal, Vegetable, Miserable”, harshly states that it is not “purport to justify the killing and consumption of animals in the name of human welfare.” But really, what does it mean to eat ethically? What moral principles should guide our food choices and ways of eating?...
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...The welfare, intended as the set of measures and policies devoted to ensure minimum quality life standards to individuals, is normally associated to the state insomuch reference is generally made to “welfare state”. The welfare state is based on ethical ideals: it is created in the name of social justice, to implement the fundamental rights and freedoms of human beings (as developed from time to time in the various cultures). Stuart White wants to clarify in the Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State, the main ethical arguments, which are inherent in the creation of the welfare state. First of all a process for the achievement of the basic needs of the citizens (questionable what are the basic needs), latterly equality, seen as same opportunities without racial or social influence, and lastly liberty, conceived as ‘negative’ liberty of coercive ‘redistribution’ in order to achieve a moral and social congruence between all the individuals. However, welfare state, even if based on ethic-philosophical findings, has many implications and effects in the economic field. As Briggs (1961) argued, the welfare state is an organization whose purpose is to modify the market forces in at least three directions: (I) ensure to the individuals and to the families minimum incomes; (II) decrease the level of insecurity; and (III) assure the best standard available of social services (Cittadini 2015). ***** Modern concept...
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...goodwill of the populace is the best way to maintain power. Goodwill is the crucial term to understand Machiavelli definition of a great ruler. Machiavelli introduction of The Prince is about the way Lorenzo should govern with absolute power, as military power is dominant. He proposed the advantage and disadvantage to attend various routes to power. The most important theme in his book is how a Prince should avoid hatred from his populace. This can directly relate to contemporary society. As Machiavelli suggested, it is not necessary for a Prince to be love, but hatred is the downfall of a ruler. His realist’s argument point out that fears is the best alternative to sustain power; however, in modern society context, it doesn’t work anymore. How is his argument related to today context? The latest issue regarding goodwill is Obamacare or the Affordable Health Care Act. Millions of American will have insurance who did not have it before, including many among the sick and the poor. To date, insurers have been able to charge extraordinary rate, or deny them coverage. The law starts at the beginning of 2014, where everyone is require to buy insurance or pay penalty. For those who cannot afford...
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...Journal of Health Economics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/econbase Moral hazard in insurance, value-based cost sharing, and the benefits of blissful ignorance Mark V. Pauly ∗ , Fredric E. Blavin Health Care Systems Department, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 3641 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6218, United States a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t The conventional theory of optimal coinsurance rates for health insurance with moral hazard indicates that coinsurance should vary with the price responsiveness or price-elasticity of demand for different medical services. An alternative theory called “value-based cost sharing” indicates that coinsurance should be lower for services with higher (marginal) benefits relative to costs. This paper reconciles the two views. It shows that, if patient demands are based on correct information, optimal coinsurance is the same under either theory. If patient demands differ from informed demands, optimal coinsurance depends both on information imperfection and price responsiveness. Value-based cost sharing can be superior to providing information (even if the cost of information is minimal) when patient demands fall short of informed demands. An extended numerical example illustrates these points. © 2008 Published by Elsevier B.V. Article history: Received 17 August 2007 Received in revised form 20 June 2008 Accepted 8 July 2008 Available online 18 July 2008 JEL classification: I11 Keywords: Health...
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...Pope’s Issue with Abortion One of the most controversial political and social issues in the world has been the morality of abortion. At what stage human life begins is one of the main arguments of abortion between the pro-choice advocates and the pro-life advocates. The taking of an innocent life, especially at it's beginning or end, is considered gravely immoral. Although Pope John Paul II argues his disagreement with abortion quite well, those in support of abortion say his claims are not strong enough and have many inconsistencies within them. Pope John Paul II view’s on the topic can be considered by many as pro-life, for the simple fact that he disagrees with all forms of abortion and believes that even fetus’ have the same right to life as any other human. The Pope defines procured abortion as, “the deliberate and direct killing, by whatever means it is carried out, of a human being in the initial phase of his or her existence, extending from conception to birth” (Timmons 276). The decision to have an abortion is often painful and tragic to the mother. Not only is she ridding herself of the fruit of life, but a part of herself, too. It may be that the mother's health, or the child's welfare after birth is a factor in this decision, but, “these reasons and others like them, however serious and tragic, can never justify the deliberate killing of an innocent human being” (Timmons 276). Since life is considered to begin at the time of fertilization, the new life...
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...CHAPTER SUMMARY – CHAPTER 1 – ETHICS IN THE WORLD OF BUSINESS Frequently, the ethically correct course of action is clear, and people in business act accordingly. Exceptions occur when there is uncertainty about ethical obligations in particular situations or when considerations of ethics come into conflict with the practical demands of business. In deciding on an ethical course of action, we can rely to some extent on the rules of right conduct that we employ in everyday life. However, business activity also has some features that might limit the applicability of our ordinary ethical views. One distinguishing feature of business is its economic character which can be summarized as the conduct of buyers and seller and employers and employees. A second distinguishing feature of business is that it typically takes place in organizations which is a hierarchical system of functionally defined positions designed to achieve some goal or set of goals. Because business involves economic relations and transactions that take place in markets and also in organizations, it raises ethical issues for which the ethics of everyday life has not prepared us. Decisions making occurs on several distinct levels: the level of the individual, the organization, and the business system. The level of the individual represents situations that confront them in the workplace and require them to make a decision about their own well-being. The level of the organization can be identified...
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...Ethical problems with Thomson's argument 2. Thomson's argument is fatal to family morality. It follows from the first criticism that Thomson's volunteerism is fatal to family morality, which has as one of its central beliefs that an individual has special and filial obligations to his offspring and family that he does not have to other persons. Although Thomson may not consider such a fatality as being all that terrible, since she may accept the feminist dogma that the traditional family is "oppressive" to women,12 a great number of ordinary men and women, who have found joy, happiness, and love in family life, find Thomson's volunteerism to be counter-intuitive. Philosopher Christina Sommers has come to a similar conclusion: For it [the volunteerist thesis] means that there is no such thing as filial duty per se, no such thing as the special duty of mother to child, and generally no such thing as morality of special family or kinship relations. All of which is contrary to what people think. For most people think that we do owe special debts to our parents even though we have not voluntarily assumed our obligations to them. Most people think that what we owe to our children does not have its origin in any voluntary undertaking, explicit or implicit, that we have made to them. And "preanalytically," many people believe that we owe special consideration to our siblings even at times when we may not feel very friendly to them . . . . The idea that to be committed to an individual...
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...Similarities between classical and modern liberalism are greater than the differences. Discuss. (45 marks) Typically, liberalism is categorised into two separate components; classical liberalism, which was fashioned during the 19th century as a result of the industrial revolution, and the more recent Modern Liberalism which emerged as industrialisation continued within the UK. Although both divisions of Liberalism unavoidably overlap in attitudes and approaches regarding the theory behind the ideology, I believe, fundamentally, that clear tensions between these aspects of Liberalism are more evident when analysing this ideology. Some will say that both classical and modern liberalists possess a number of parallel approaches towards this political theory and its key concepts. Firstly, both strands of Liberalism believe in the necessity of some kind of a state, since life without a state, as Thomas Hobbes stated, would be ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’. Both views consider the existence of a state to be essential in order to protect individual rights. Since liberals generally considered humanity to be self-interested and egoistical, a state was needed to ensure that individuals did not exploit other individuals’ rights, through acts of stealing, harming, or even slavery, and was therefore the only thing that was capable of restraining all individuals and groups within society. Hobbes and Locke particularly stressed the importance of creating a ‘social contract’...
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...Part A (a): Ethical dilemma The ethical dilemma that Kate faces is whether to report the potential milk contamination to the Queensland Food Safety Authority (FSA). Ethical Egoism Under ethical egoism, Kate would follow Ben’s decision and not pursue the milk contamination issue further. Kate’s main self-interest is that she keeps her job at the restaurant to provide for her family and fund her university degree. Therefore, upholding Ben’s self-interest of not saying anything, will not only ensure Kate her job, it may also result in her being seen as more trustworthy and loyal to the restaurant owners. Hence, Kate not saying anything is justified under egoism. Utilitarianism To solve a dilemma under utilitarianism, all the positives and negatives must be evaluated in order to ascertain what will give the greatest good. The following are positives and negative if Kate chooses not to alert authorities of the contamination. Positives: Kate’s job will be safe as Ben threatened her that she may be fired if she pursues the matter. Ben and the restaurant owner would be pleased as any bad publicity associated with the restaurant could severely affect business. Bad publicity may also force employees to become retrenched, including Kate and the close friends she has made at her work. Furthermore, the risk that anyone has contaminated milk is miniscule, and lastly, FSA inspectors won’t disrupt Service because they won’t be called out. Negatives: Innocent members of the community...
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...The Purchase of Moral Satisfaction ( Richard O. Zerbe Jr. Abstract The debate over whether moral sentiments should be included in normative economic analysis offers the arguments that inclusion is unnecessary as results are the same, that inclusion can result in double counting and will result in acceptance of projects that fail to pass a potential compensation test. I show that these arguments are unpersuasive or incorrect. Instead the inclusion of moral sentiments has potential to improve normative analysis. This is illustrated by comparing the standard criteria for benefit cost analysis (Kaldor-Hicks) that does not include moral sentiments with a modification (KHZ) that does. KHZ dominates KH even by the principles of KH itself. JEL Codes: Q20, D6, D63, D64 I. Introduction The practical criteria for economic efficiency, the Kaldor-Hicks (KH) criteria, have existed for over sixty years, without the profession fully facing the issue of whether or not moral sentiments should be included in normative economic analysis. In part this is due to historical reasons, in part to normal inertia associated with any academic discipline, in part because of the recent interest in moral sentiments in the form of existence values and in part because of objections raised to inclusion of moral sentiments. This paper concerns two issues. The first is whether or not it is desirable to include moral sentiments in welfare analysis. The answer to this question...
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...All around the world, animals have played a huge role in human society and have suffered greatly at the hands of humans whether it was for experimental, domestic, medical, or fashion purposes. The notion of animal rights has become a foreign concept to many people as more and more animals are abused and killed each day for a wide range of socially acceptable purposes. However, animals deserve the right to live free from unnecessary pain or suffering because they are conscious and sentient beings that have intrinsic value. Therefore, measures should be taken to regulate the treatment of animals in order to recognize their rights, to favor animal welfare, and to diminish the amount of suffering they have to endure. Although humans have the right to use animals for their use and benefit, humans also have a moral obligation to recognize animal rights and to treat all living...
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...helps to tease out the real issues and find ethical solutions to complex practical troubles. Ethical queries come up when the exercise of preference somehow affects the welfare of others. One of the problems for any business related issue is that they may not realize when choices about technical matters have moral significances. Ethical Models: • Utilitarian ethics Duty/deontological ethics • Virtue ethics There is relationship between ethics and law and these are the issues can be legal as well as moral, or the issue can be legal and immoral or, the issues can be illegal and moral, or the issues can be illegal and immoral. So it is possible that the issue is illegal yet moral. In the argument on "selling banned drugs to overseas" is not really illegal if it is benefitted to the country citizen and it is a moral duty towards to customers or business. Laws are more like giving definite answer to the issue saying if it is legal or not legal. But in business world especially pharmaceutical companies, issues cannot be dealt in these definite ways. It is really complicated to deal with the pharmaceutical drugs because sometimes drugs are useful for certain people while detrimental to some people and sometimes it is not socially and religiously valid and sometimes it leads to crime. So there are always arguments on these issues. Some of the ethical issues in research faced by regulatory affairs are:...
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